Proving Cetacean Intelligence

Can science prove the intelligence of whales and dolphins?

This has to be the most common and sought-after question about these fascinating animals, starting from diverse ideas about their possible “language” to their self-image. Are cetaceans intelligent?

Do we share the world with another intelligent species? What does that tell about them – about us?

Actually, the question of intelligence is two-fold. Strictly speaking, it is a matter of cognitive abilities, where creativity applied to problem-solving expresses itself. That question has largely been solved: yes, cetaceans do exhibit a stunning variety of creative behaviours that we get to see here in Icelandic waters, whether it is the coordination and astuteness expressed by orcas that are carousel feeding on herring, or simply seeing them surfing the waves when the swell is high.
But strict problem-solving is not what the human mind, deep down, looks for with this question. Otherwise, Siri and Alexa would be called intelligent. What we are looking for, the real question that lies behind the matter of intelligence, is sentience. Sentience is self-awareness; it is the ability to view yourself as a sensitive being and experience the fact of experiencing the world. Just as we, humans, feel ourselves as existing, as beings conscious of ourselves and of what we feel and think – in other words, we can define ourselves as objects through a thought process that is one step removed from our direct experience of the world.

That is the grand question of cetacean intelligence. (And of animal intelligence in general.) Are there other beings, beyond our species, that are sentient to a level that would be comparable to our own?

Science multiplies methods and processes to observe the world and infer conclusions from data, from recent drone observations of animals to complex statistical models. With these methods and thanks to the ever-evolving frame of mind of researchers and scientists, we have observed, for instance, enigmatic behaviours of dolphins staying near the body of a dead comrade and exhibiting apathy – something that it is hard not to call “grieving”. We know dolphins have signature whistles that identify themselves uniquely among a pod – something that is hard not to call “a name”. We know many species of whales sing a huge variety of songs and that some of those are repeated, propagated from pod to pod, as they take on – something that science is resolutely calling “culture”.

So what does that tell us? Are cetaceans sentient? Ultimately?

There is a catch.

That question cannot be answered by science and fact.

Science deals with observations, with objectivity. We can infer dolphins grieve, we call their songs culture, but these are emanations and not causes. Of what nature is the mind behind these emanations? Look at a fellow human. See him or her go about his or her day. Postulate a foreign mind, alien maybe, looking at this – how could it be able to infer sentience from the outside?

You, as a human being, you can. You can because you are sentient yourself, and therefore, when looking at a member of your own species, you attribute sentience to him or her, as you feel yourself being so.

But you act, really, on faith. You do not get into the other’s head to experience his or her point of view – you cannot.

I would like to submit this to you: ultimately, sentience cannot be demonstrated. We can pile facts upon facts about the fascinating behaviours of whales and dolphins – and it is capital for research and conservation to always know more; but we will never have enough to answer the question of sentience. Sentience is a little like Gödel’s theorem – a famous mathematical proof which says, in layman’s terms, that a coherent system cannot demonstrate its own coherence. Just like a dictionary of a given language is forced to use its own words to explain what other words mean – there is no outside explanation possible.

We cannot, in the foreseeable future, get into the heads of whales and dolphins. We have ample demonstration of their amazing range of expression and we keep learning every day. Are they sentient? This is not a question that can be empirically solved. Ultimately, it is an act of – yes – faith on our part as individuals, and as a species. What do we choose to attribute to other species that exhibit such a stunning range of expression and behaviours? How do we consider them?

In the end, that answer will be telling much more about us than it will about them.